The two main ingredients in the recipe of good skin moisturization are water and oil.

Water is probably the most important part… without water, your skin is dehydrated. It’s sort of prune like… it feels tight and unpleasant and shows all kinds of lines (even if your skin is also oily).

However, without proper oil (also known as an “occlusive” ingredient), your skin becomes dry because it can’t hold that water in. The water in your skin evaporates out into the air and gets even more dehydrated.

This is all very important because your skin needs to be properly hydrated in order to function the way it’s supposed to… in other words, skin that is smooth and acne free!

So today I want to talk about what they call “humectants”.

Humectants are ingredients in skin care that attract water to your skin and hold it there, magically making it feel super hydrated and young looking! No kidding! [Read more…]

Want to start on the path to clear skin and happiness? Here are 10 simple things that you can start doing right now to begin your journey to a shiny happy face:

1) Start Loving Yourself

No, I’m not joking. Stress is a HUGE factor in creating an acne condition that’s a heck of a lot worse than it needs to be, and a lot of unseen stress is created by not loving and accepting ourselves despite our flaws and insecurities.

2) Take Stock of What’s in Your Cupboard

Are you seeing more processed food in there than that of the real, fresh, wholesome variety?

Start coming up with some ways that you can replace some of that junk with healthy foods like fruits and vegetables that are essential for gorgeous skin. Go to the farmer’s market, research some recipes, and clear out the fridge to make room for the good stuff.

3) Pick up a Jump Rope

A healthy lymphatic system that can remove toxins from your blood effectively is going to have a very positive effect on your skin’s health. Guess what the best exercise is for moving your lymphatic system is? Jumping!

4) Drink More Water

Something as simple as replacing all the soda, milk, juice, coffee, energy drinks, and alcohol you drink with water can make a humongous difference to your skin! Not only are you hydrating your body with an essential, life giving substance, but you are also eliminating all the other not-so-great-for-you stuff in the things you were drinking before – like sugar and caffeine.

5) Start Practicing Mindfulness

Most of our stress comes from either imagining the bad things that are going to happen in the future, or from dwelling on things that happened in the past. Most of us are so stuck in the past and future that we end up missing out on the right now. This can result in an imbalanced state of mind, poor digestion – and yes, could even lead to more acne.

Start by paying attention to what you are doing right here right now. When you eat, sit down and really taste the flavours. When you walk, notice the leaves on the trees and the way the wind feels in your hair. When you play, really play – don’t let your mind be somewhere else or you are missing all the fun.

Learning to be more in the moment – called being mindful – is one of the most important skills you can learn to increase your happiness quotient.

6) Get More Omega 3s

Omega 3 fatty acids are extremely important nutrients in our diet that are essential to so many things – brain power, hormonal balance, cardiovascular health, and the integrity of your skin and hair. Plus, it’s powerfully anti-inflammatory, which means starting to get more of it in your diet can go a long way in getting rid of acne.

The best, most absorbable forms of Omega 3s come from cold water fish such as wild salmon and sardines. You can also find it to a lesser degree in things like grass-fed beef, and seeds like flax and chia.

Admittedly, it’s difficult to get enough Omega 3s in your diet, due to the small selection of foods that contain it. Taking a fish oil supplement is a good idea, but if you take one that is of inferior quality it can do more harm than good. I highly recommend fermented cod liver oil as one of the best supplements you can take for your skin, as it contains Omega 3s as well as other important nutrients for lovely skin such as Vitamin A and D.

7) Throw Out all Your Harsh Commercial Products

Your skin would probably be a lot better with a lot less acne if you would only stop attacking it with all those harsh cleansers, moisturizers, and acne creams. Sounds counterintuitive to what we’ve always been told, but it’s true. Those aren’t helping you to have nicer, smoother skin.

8) Try Having a Green Smoothie for Breakfast

Getting enough of these in your diet is though, because they aren’t always a lot of fun to eat.

The solution?

Try a green smoothie. It’s when you mix these nutrient packed greens with fruits in a smoothie – the sweetness of the fruit covers up the greens to the point where you can’t even taste them. But you are still getting all benefits! Genius!

9) Plan to take a Month Off from Dairy Products

Dairy products – milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, and everything else made from milk – are the single most common food that can cause acne. Not everyone is sensitive to dairy products (and it’s certainly not the reason behind everyone’s acne), but there are numerous reports of people that had struggled for years until they cut out dairy and it cleared right up.

Make a plan to see if you can cut out dairy products completely for at least one month to see if it makes a difference for your skin. You might be surprised, and you don’t know if you don’t try.

10) Invite More Fun and Laughter Into Your Life!

Don’t take life and yourself so seriously! Life is full of pleasures and is meant to be enjoyed.

It’s okay if you don’t eat 100% healthy food ALL the time.

It’s okay if you don’t look like a supermodel on the cover of the magazines. Nobody does. Not even the supermodels themselves look like that, due to the use of professional makeup and an excessive use of photoshop.

It’s alright to have some spots. In fact, it’s normal. No one except you really notices them that much. People actually like you for who you are – and you have amazing unique qualities that are so much more important than what you look like. If you disagree because of the culture of sex and objectification that we live in – well, you need to realize that our culture is purposely fabricated in this way because the worse we feel about ourselves, the more money it makes for people who want to sell us things. That’s the truth, and don’t think it isn’t. It’s difficult not to let it get to you, but believe me – you DO have self worth that is so much more than your looks.

You need to do what makes you happy, and don’t let acne hold you back. So many people create their own acne by allowing their spots to control them. It seems like a paradox, but letting go a little and allowing yourself to laugh, play, go after your dreams, and really enjoy yourself no matter what life throws at you can be one of the biggest steps you take right now to make your skin, and your life, better.

So I’ve been getting a few requests lately to hear about how my experience with MMS (Miracle Mineral Solution) went. If you don’t know what MMS is, read my articles about it here and here.

Well…. all in all, I’d say the first experiment with MMS, for me, wasn’t very successful.

MMS is supposedly a ridiculously powerful detoxifier. So my theory was that if you could detox your body quickly with it, it would help to prevent toxins from coming out through your skin.

It can also kill parasites and other buggers that may be messing with your digestion, so it could help in that way too.

I used it very consistently for a few weeks… 3 or 4. Maybe 5. Sorry, I should have paid better attention! I got up to somewhere around 9 or 10 drops twice a day.

The only consistent thing I noticed throughout the whole experiment was that I was really cranky all the time and kinda lethargic. And when I got up into the higher doses – 9 and 10 drops, it started hurting my stomach a bit and I lost my appetite. I never got classicly nauseous though.

Since my stomach was feeling yucky, I cut back down to 6 drops twice a day for a few days and then decided to quit.

I felt a lot better after I stopped.

The thing is – this is what’s supposed to happen – feeling bad signifies that you actually are detoxing. The toxins die and your body needs to process them. If they die too quickly for your body to handle, then they will make you feel bad.

I realized that it might be a good idea to take a liver detoxifying supplement or something before and while you take MMS to help this process along. If your detoxifying channels are backed up – ie your liver is overloaded and your bowels aren’t working properly, then your detox symptoms will be magnified.

Maybe that was what was happening with me. Maybe if I had kept going, I would have pushed past it and started to feel amazing. I have no idea.

The thing is, I’ve been reading that the protocol I was using – the two big doses twice a day – is actually an old recommendation. They now recommend that you take a very small dose – 2 or 3 drops – every hour, 8 hours a day, for 3 weeks.

I know – when I first read that, I was like…. yeah. Not gonna happen.

But allegedly you can mix it every morning in one big batch and then drink the allotted portion every hour, instead of mixing it 8 times a day. That doesn’t sound so bad.

Anyway, this new recommendation is apparently a lot more gentle on your body. The constant doses ensure that detoxification is happening consistently (instead of just in one or two MEGA hits, which can obviously be tough on the body) and the low dose ensures that your body is able to process the dead toxins without getting overwhelmed.

So, I was going to try out this new protocol first before I wrote my follow up article on MMS, but since people were asking, I figured I may as well give you the update.

It’s a good thing too, since I don’t have a clue when I’m going to work my way up to trying it again. The first experiment wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t all that fun (especially because MMS tastes retched). I’m not at all stoked to try it again, but if this protocol is gentler, than maybe it won’t be so bad.

Oh, I’d also like to say that I tried using the MMS externally on my skin too… I only used it for about a week, but I found it to be a bit drying. And it smelled gross. And it was annoying mixing it every other day. So, yeah… that was also abandoned quickly!

In conclusion: The verdict is still out on MMS for me. It didn’t make a lick of difference to my skin, but I haven’t really read much about it helping with acne specifically, so it was really only an experimental hope.

It’s not to say MMS doesn’t work for anything though. It’s primary function, so they say, seems to be killing parasites and viruses and whatever else, and I’ve had people post on the last articles about MMS saying that it stamps out colds for them in a second.

Hopefully you found the time to take a gander through my soul baring article I posted two days ago about my new life in Australia with my boyfriend’s parents, my subsequent loss of control over my eating habits, and my mini freak outs. If not, I suggest you read it here.

The theme of that article was that I came to realize how much I control my food in order to control my skin. There’s nothing wrong with not liking acne and there’s certainly nothing wrong with healthy eating – but the truth is that I can tell now that I’m not really doing it to control my acne, I’m doing it to keep a handle on my FEAR of the pain that bad acne causes me.

If I can control, then the pain cannot control me.

The fact is though – trying to control things that either a) cannot be controlled or b) are in the realm of someone else’s business is what causes serious anxiety.

We spend a lot of our time swimming upstream against reality. We constantly fight what is.

For most of us acne sufferers, reality is that our skin is not in an ideal state, and we hate that reality. We can’t stand that reality. It makes us feel desperate and sad. It makes us feel out of control.

Being out of control is horrendously difficult. It feels very scary and in order to feel okay, we tend to choose something within our reach that can be controlled.

For me, that is my food and this is common amongst acne sufferers. For those of us with acne who are not taking the holistic approach, our control is often exerted through the use of products and medications. For people without skin problems, they may choose to control other people, their routines, or even their response to the weather.

But it rarely works the way we want and that leaves us reeling. Even if things do go according to our plans, we’re still left with that anxiety and fear about what could possibly happen to us if we lose our steel grip – if we cannot eat according to plan, or if we cannot wash our faces and apply our medications in the usual way.

So how do you just let go?

First of all – I want to address this fairly obvious objection that is probably cropping up in your mind right now – is there a difference between letting go and giving up? Are you asking me to stop trying to get rid of my acne?

No, I’m asking you to try to:

Accept How Things Are

Control What You Can

Let Go of The Rest

For me, this means accepting that I may not have complete control anymore, and that even if it results in a bit more acne, then that is how it is. It won’t be forever.

The second part is eating relatively healthy because I want to (which has nothing to do with being fearful), but not having a perfect, strict diet (which IS based in fear). In other words, eat a healthy breakfast and lunch – because I can. I am also making a point to get lots of physical activity in to offset any dietary discrepancies.

The third part is choosing not to be anxious about what we’re eating for dinner with my boyfriend’s parents, because I can’t control that. I mean, I guess technically I could muscle in and take control, but I don’t think I should do that – I feel it’s unnecessary and that that would just be me giving into my fear.

Okay… is it really a choice though? Can you just turn the anxiety off?

Well here is something I was thinking about the other day…. why are so many people religious and have a close relationship with God? I’ve never been a religious person, and can’t say I ever really “got” it.

But I had a bit of an epiphany the other day when I realized that this is how people just let go of their worries that are beyond their control. It feels good to leave them with a higher power to deal with…. to sort them out for you, and to feel faith that whatever happens, it’s all going to be okay because whatever is out there has got your back.

Whether any higher power – God, the Universe, Gaia, Spirit – is objectively a “real” thing is not really important – it’s more the spiritual connection that can help you to transcend your anxiety that is.

Personally, I am not about to go to church or join an organized religion because that doesn’t resonate with me. I’m more of the ‘new agey’ type, so I prefer the Universe.

You have to find whatever works for you.

Whatever it is, you have to believe that this higher power is a friendly one. There is no point putting your faith into a negative and volatile entity – you must learn to have faith that this power is on your side.

In fact, I tried this the other day in a real life situation and it definitely helped.

You see, about a week before I was to catch my plane down to Australia, my passport somehow ended up in a pool of water on our kitchen table.

However, when my boyfriend, Luke, found the passport in the water, he freaked out considering there was no time before our flight to get a new one. He called Passport Canada and they told him that any damage at all and the passport was unusable.

However, I didn’t think it was that bad – there was a bit of smeared pen, but you could still see all the important stuff. Would they really turn me away because of this? Don’t they have bigger fish to fry?

So it was all well and good, but when I was actually standing in line at the airport, of course my anxiety began to bubble up.

What IF they said something about it? What IF they actually turned me away?

But then I thought – you know what – that hasn’t happened yet. It’s likely nothing will happen, and if it does, worry about it afterwards. I then decided to give my worries to the Universe. I can’t control the outcome – let the Universe do it. I asked it to take my anxiety and give me a positive outcome.

I immediately felt better. And hey, I made it through – no one even mentioned the passport. But even if they had – would it really be the end of the world? Would it be something I couldn’t recover from? No. It would suck, but life would go on.

Okay that’s it. Do you have a special way of letting go, or surrendering your control?

Disclaimer

I'm not a health care professional. All the information found on this website should be used for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace proper medical advice. Always consult a qualified health care provider before embarking on a health or supplement plan.